Arturo Colautti ( Zara, 9 October 1851 –

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, 9 November 1914) was an Italian

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

polemicist Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...

and

librettist A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major litu ...

. He was a strong supporter of

Italian irredentism Italian irredentism ( it, irredentismo italiano) was a nationalist movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Italy with irredentist goals which promoted the unification of geographic areas in which indigenous peoples ...

for his native Dalmatia.

Biography

Youth in Dalmatia

Born in Zara, the youngest of four children of Francesco Colautti, a Friulian engineer employed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Luisa Couarde, a French native of Antibes, Arturo spent his adolescence in his native town, where he graduated in the local High School and then did his military service in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was interested very early in journalism: at the age of 17 he founded the newspaper ''Il Progresso'', followed by ''La Leva''. At that time he studied at the Universities of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and Graz, majoring in political science and geography. He thereafter went to Fiume to direct ''La Bilancia'', to return again to his native Zara to direct ''Il Dalmata'' from 1872-74. He relocated to

Spalato )'' , settlement_type = City , anthem = ''Marjane, Marjane'' , image_skyline = , imagesize = 267px , image_caption = Top: Nighttime view of Split from Mosor; 2nd row: Cathedra ...

in 1876, where he founded the magazine of culture and literature, ''Rivista Dalmatica''. The magazine did not last long, because strongly pro-Italian and related to

Antonio Bajamonti Antonio Baiamonti (19February 182213January 1891) was an Austrian and Dalmatian Italian politician and longtime mayor of Split. He is remembered as one of the most successful mayors of the city, occupying the post almost continuously for twenty ...

. In the same year, he was asked to direct ''L'Avvenire'' and -from 1876 al 1880- he developed it as an

irredentist Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent st ...

newspaper. Following the publication of an anti-Austrian article on his newspaper, in September 1880, Colautti was attacked by a group of soldiers that rendered him impaired for a few months. Shortly after, also because of the threat of lawsuit for crimes against the stringent Austrian press laws and in support of Italian irredentism, Colautti chose the path of exile and took refuge in the Kingdom of Italy.

The Neapolitan Period and the late years

"He first settled in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

, where he founded ''L’Euganeo'', then in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, where he founded ''L’Italia''" and collaborated with various newspapers. Colautti founded the ''Corriere del Mattino'' in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

(1885), then became its director and remained there for fifteen years, after which he undertook the direction of the '' Corriere di Napoli''. In the many years spent in Naples, he wrote hundreds of articles, but also poems, novels and plays, gaining an excellent literary reputation. Some of his operatic librettos were set to music ('' Adriana Lecouvreur'' by Cilea, '' Fedora'' by

Umberto Giordano Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano (28 August 186712 November 1948) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. He was born in Foggia in Apulia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples. His first opera, ''Mari ...

and ''Doña Flor'' by

Niccolò van Westerhout Nicola van Westerhout (also ''Niccolò''; 17 December 1857 – 21 August 1898) was an Italian composer. Biography History and formal training Of Flemish origin, the family van Westerhout settled in Apulia in the seventeenth century, first in Ba ...

). Colautti was a forceful writer and vehement polemicist. "He also wrote a sentimental composition in seven sonnets, ''Annie'', for Annie Vivanti, which was published in the ''Cronaca Partenopea''." "He dueled with Matteo Renato Imbriani." Under the pseudonym of "Fram", Colautti was also a military critic of the '' Corriere della Sera'' during the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

(1904) and again in Milan from 1912–14, when he directed ''L'Alba'', and returned to work in Milan at ''Via Solferino''. For the duration of the exile, Colautti maintained close contacts with the Dalmatian irredentists and actively participated nationally in various events and conferences. At the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Colautti was one of the many Dalmatian Italian interventionists, but died a few months before Italian intervention in the conflict. For matters of public order, he had no public honors, and his body was buried with a private ceremony at the cemetery of Verano.

Notes

References

* ''Arturo Colautti'', in ''Dizionario enciclopedico della letteratura italiana'', Laterza, Bari 1966 * G. Baroni, ''Arturo Colautti'', in F.Semi-V.Tacconi (cur.), ''Istria e Dalmazia. Uomini e tempi. Dalmazia'', Del Bianco, Udine 1992 * G. Paoli Palcich, ''Arturo Colautti: la vita e le opere'', in ''La Rivista Dalmatica'', Roma 1984

External links